Dragon Quest VIII slow down, text garbage and frame drop

[willdawg16]

I've read a couple links and pages on Dragon Quest VIII and I haven't quite been able to find a balance between graphics and speed. Ultimately I'm looking to have a smooth running game with little to no frame rate drop but at the same time have it look good while playing. Here's my specs just for that part

Intel quad core 2.5
radeon 4850
windows 7
8gb ram

Im in the first town and in houses and stuff the game runs and looks fine, out in the open outside the town and in the town itself it's serious chunk lag time. Anyone help me with some settings or advice on resolutions or something? Thanks in advance and sorry if this topic has been beaten like a dead horse!

Thanks again.

[JTD]

This game requires an Intel Core2Duo or (Core2Quad) or i3, i5, or i7 running at about 3.6 to 4.2 GHz in order to run at fullspeed most of the time.

The game is playable with my Phenom II x2 @ 3.8 GHz and my GTX 460, at a resolution of 2x or 3x, but I get a lot of slowdowns in the overworld, certain towns, and battles with tons of monsters.
I'm only using the three recommended speedhacks.

Non-native resolutions look better when you set internal res to a multiple (such as 2x or 3x) instead of manually inserting numbers.

Some of the ingame cutscenes are messed up/not emulated properly.
You have to switch to Software Mode in GSdx when they play (and they play slowly in software mode, but you can at least see and Hear whats going on).
This is a known issue.

I'd recommend overclocking your Intel Processor, if it is one of the ones I listed above.

[whiteriott]

yea game is playable under my intel core2quad 2.6 an ati 5770.
playable from beginin to end, cuz i just done it with full alchemy lol.
but like JTD says i got frames dropin from 60 to 50-45 when in some towns like argonia or when battle full of monsters.

use tune up utilities for setin ur pc at turbo mode, u will gain some frames.

[willdawg16]

Yeah this sounds about right I guess. It's funny though when I watch the counter I get a steady 60, maybe 59/58 but it just runs slow in the overworld. You guys ever notice when you load games or in the chat boxes the extra text garbage and stuff too?

What kind of tune up/speed up tools would you guys recommend? I've been having one hell of a time trying to overclock my ati 4850 with the catalyst control center, works like crap lol

[Butz_san]

I got 60fps in overworld, but in some parts the fps drops from 60 to 47-50 fps. Of course, I'm using native resolution for this game because it's very GPU demanding xDDD.

[willdawg16]

That's weird, the native resolution fixed all the text garbage and weird odds and ends stuff in the menus and shops. On a side note, it runs much smoother in the over world but alas looks like garbage when full screened on my 32" samsung

Side note if i were to upgrade one thing my processor or graphics card which would impact the performance more? I was thinking about getting a GTX 460 (if for some reason I couldn't figure out how to overclock my cpu and gpu) to see if that would kick ass and take names all over DQ VIII. Which would you guys suggest?

[Butz_san]

That's weird, the native resolution fixed all the text garbage and weird odds and ends stuff in the menus and shops. On a side note, it runs much smoother in the over world but alas looks like garbage when full screened on my 32" samsung

Side note if i were to upgrade one thing my processor or graphics card which would impact the performance more? I was thinking about getting a GTX 460 (if for some reason I couldn't figure out how to overclock my cpu and gpu) to see if that would kick ass and take names all over DQ VIII. Which would you guys suggest?

Your Video Card is fine for pcsx2, also your CPU, but if you want (can) upgrade something, you could upgrade your CPU for an i5-7, they are the best at the moment

Note: You must overclock your Quad or the new CPU in order to see any improvements on speed using Pcsx2

[willdawg16]

Hmmmmm now i'm really in a bind! It looks like my Intel DP35DP mother board doesnt support overclocking :/

BUMMER!!!!

[Butz_san]

Hmmmmm now i'm really in a bind! It looks like my Intel DP35DP mother board doesnt support overclocking :/

BUMMER!!!!

You can always buy a cheap motherboard and overclocked . Mine is not too expensive and I can overclock my i3 until 4Ghz with no problems at all, and I'm using stock cooler

[willdawg16]

yeah thats not a bad idea, just finding the time to do it will be a pain in the ass hahaha! Any recommendations on a good MOBO to get for that Intel chip?